


Aspiration

by Skylark



Series: SASO 2016 [9]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aromantic, Character Study, Crushes, M/M, Pre-Slash, Romance, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 20:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8768743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: Bokuto has become more punctual since Akaashi joined the volleyball team. More studious, more agile, more emotionally volatile.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arsenicjay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicjay/gifts).



> [Original Prompt:](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/15224.html?thread=7096952#cmt7135608)
>
>> So hum hallelujah,  
> Just off the key of reason  
> I thought I loved you  
> It was just how you looked in the light.  
> \-- Hum Hallelujah, Fall Out Boy

Bokuto thinks about Akaashi all the time. He thinks about him on and off the court, in and out of class, walking to and from school. Any action he takes, he imagines how Akaashi would look doing it: lifting food-laden chopsticks to his mouth, scratching the back of his calf with his toes as he brushes his teeth, the arch of his neck as he bends to read a textbook. He knows that Akaashi would have to arch very much, and lean forward very far, because Akaashi is short-sighted but hates to wear glasses. He wears contact lenses for matches, but only then.  
  
Bokuto sighs, very loudly and dramatically, and his older sister cuffs the back of his head and tells him to cut out out. She doesn't ask him what he's sighing about, and he does not announce it as he normally would. He stays quiet, perhaps uncharacteristically so. He hopes it is uncharacteristic. He hopes that eventually someone will notice, the way he doesn't ask for a second helping these days, the way he retreats to his room early without carousing in the living room with his siblings as he normally would.  
  
He thinks of the way he would reply when asked, the way he would turn his eyes down to the ground, biting his lip as if trying to keep the heavy words inside of his mouth. The way he would say, after a pause, "I'm in love."  
  
Because he _is_ in love—with Akaashi, who often ignores him but never once looks through him or past him. Who devoted himself to six months of Bokuto's after-practice practices when he first joined the team, keeping up with Bokuto's hectic pace just so he could learn how to serve to him and, in so doing, make first string. Akaashi who stands by his door every morning and waits for him to dash outside with toast in his mouth and one sleeve flapping behind him, even though the wait occasionally makes him late to class.  
  
Bokuto has become more punctual since Akaashi joined the volleyball team. More studious, more agile, more emotionally volatile. Bokuto's mother once told Akaashi that he was a good influence on her son. Akaashi murmured something polite in response, his eyes fixed on the ground. His face was placid, but it was the look in his turned-away gaze that gave him away—there was something more to what he said, something he was hiding. Bokuto thinks about that expression a lot. It's what he will want to emulate when someone asks him, finally, what is wrong.  
  
He loves Akaashi, he thinks with determination. It is impossible not to love someone who tries so hard to make their care invisible, and yet is so fastidious with its application. He loves Akaashi, and perhaps one day he will care about Bokuto enough to touch him the way he wants to be touched. Perhaps one day Akaashi will lay his palm against his back, still heaving from the exertion of scoring the game-winning point. Perhaps his hand will press a space for itself between the shifting planes of Bokuto's shoulderblades, and remain there.  
  
It is very hard for Bokuto to be patient, but he is willing to try all sorts of things if there's a good reason for it. For now he satisfies himself with curling into a ball in the center of his bed and flipping the sheets up, high, over his head. He holds his breath.  
  
The seconds pass, carefully counted, until he feels the first brush of falling cloth against his skin. It makes him shiver, his breath releasing in a slow exhale. He imagines that Akaashi is there beside him, sitting at the edge of the bed. He is slipping his fingers across Bokuto's calf, his knee, then upwards, upwards. He is settling his gentle and sure touch across Bokuto's shoulders, touching him everywhere.  
  
_Akaashi,_ he whispers to the manufactured twilight beneath the bedsheet. His name always feels good in Bokuto's mouth, heavy with vowels, carefully articulated. He loves to say it. _Akaashi. Akaashi._  
  
The space beneath the sheet warms with his body heat. _Akaashi,_ he whispers a final time, and then _I love you_ —still practicing—as his eyes settle closed.


End file.
